


you're a man now, boy

by Alania



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Based on Luke's Compass, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Gen, I didn't expect to handle the actual Jedi temple destruction in this fic but, I had to make up a fuckton of names for this damn fic lord help me, Jedi Ben Solo, Knights of Ren - Freeform, KoR Backstory, Matias is my new favorite canon character of Star Wars I don't make the rules, The Knights of Ren deserve their own movie, Young Ben Solo, because jedi temple padawans don't just spontaneously combust, rating is mature for the slight graphic violence in the end, shit happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 17:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13346343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alania/pseuds/Alania
Summary: From his vantage point above, Matias could see the looks on those childrens faces. They should have been traumatized by the horror they’d just witnessed, and yet as they stared at this larger than life warrior, their eyes were wide and round and awestruck.To those innocent faces, Ben Solo was a hero.Ben Solo is given his uncle's compass and tasked with finding the final padawans for the new Jedi Temple. He finds them, but more importantly, he finds what he's always been looking for.





	you're a man now, boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aicosu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/gifts).



“What does it _do_?”

Luke held his compass out in front of the boy, flipping it open to show him the inner mechanics, and still Ben had no idea what he was looking at. There were no words, letters, or numbers to indicate any specific kind of trajectory to follow. He recognized the hypercurrent channels easily, but there were no wires or power sources leading into the lodestone that glowed faintly in the middle. To Ben, it just looked like a pretty little piece of garbage.

Luke put it in his hand, and closed the top by covering it with his own. He could already feel the stubbornness rising in his nephew, refusing to see the worth in something past the technical, past the tangible. The boy had spent far too long with his father before Leia had finally agreed to send him to join Luke and help him create the budding new Jedi Temple. It felt like a chore, to the boy. He treated everything like it was below him, like he was being _forced_.

Luke had warned her that Ben should have come to him sooner. Now, it was too late. Even at his young age, he was already forming a stubborn, immobile sense of character. But of course, she didn’t listen.

And Luke knew better than to argue.

Now the boy was growing into someone that tried too hard to be a man. Every lesson had been hard earned, fighting tooth and nail against the pragmatic qualities he’d scavenged from his father and the stubborn force of will his mother had naturally passed on to him. Ben was not an easy student to teach. But Luke shared that familial stubbornness - and that meant he did not give up.

By his teens, Ben already soared over Luke’s head in size, but his body refused to catch up. He was lanky, with big hands and big ears and a smile that could literally stretch across his entire face when it was earned. He’d asked Luke if he was allowed to grow his hair down long enough to hide his ears, once. Luke’s response had been a spar that ended in being slammed down headfirst into the ground by the scruff of it.

He still let it grow just an inch over his ears, regardless of the well learned lesson.

Luke tugged hard on his hair now, as a reminder that he should have cut it a month ago. “What do you think it does?” He asked, refusing to give the boy a clear answer about the compass. Ben’s sharp eyes flickered down to roll at his uncle, before he closed them and meditated on the compass in his hand.

Always the hard way, he told himself. Luke never made anything easy.

“It’s kyber.” Ben’s even voice hummed out, as he focused on the compass and the stone within. Feeling the hum of kyber energy within had been the easy part. It still didn’t explain what the crystal was doing there.  
“No kidding.” Luke said. For a split second, Ben considered breaking his concentration to glare at the condescending look he was sure his uncle was giving him. He stayed on task instead, though his eyebrows had dipped with frustration.

“Putting a kyber in a compass can only mean that it leads you to more kyber crystals. Is that it? My graduation task is to find you more kyber?” He said it like it was an insult, and if that had been the truth, he would have taken it as such. 

Luke considered changing the mission, just to kick the boys ego down another notch or two.

“Is that really it?” Luke answered, refusing to let him give up. By the tone in his voice, the answer was of course that it was not.

Ben’s long browline dipped even further as he concentrated. Several long seconds passed, as he gathered the Force within him and poured it in small, condensed waves. He saw flashes of the previous owners of the compass before it would let him see beyond that. His uncle, young and in danger as he made friends of enemies. Past that, a figure in a robe. Ben could sense a familiar call beckoning to him from the figure, one that he knew all too well. The Dark Side had touched on this compass, and used it for terrible ends.

He heard screams. Children - screaming - 

He almost dropped the compass, desperate to pull away from the call of the Dark Side as it beckoned him closer. The compass was claiming him, before he could even manage to discern what it was used for.

His uncle’s hand pressed over his again, stifling the call luring him away, until it passed like an unfriendly storm on the breeze. He stayed there, gripping his nephews hand and pouring his own power into the meditation, until history finally left the boy alone.

And there was the answer. Not good, not bad, just _there_.

The engraved plate moved, magnetically focusing on the galactic core itself, but the crystal was the only thing Ben’s energy was focused on. It glowed, filling in the tiny lines of a specific engraved section. It went down the second current, following the outer plates, flickering faintly. The indication was hardly there, fighting to keep its connection. 

“It leads to Force sensitives.” Ben breathed out. He let the threads of meditation go with a sigh of relief, all too happy to be free of it. When his eyes opened, his uncle was standing close in front of him with a worried frown. “Is this it? This is how we found the others? I thought...”

Luke smiled. “You thought I was using some Jedi Master trick to lead us all over the galaxy. I know. It was kind of cute.”

Ben’s furrowed brow returned in full. He did not appreciate being called _cute_. Or being lied to.

“Why are you telling me this now?” He huffed indignantly, holding the compass out for his uncle to take. Instead, Luke pushed the hand back towards him, until the compass was resting against Ben’s chest.

“Because it’s your turn to find them. It’s your turn to choose. You asked me what your final task is - this is it. You’ve outgrown this temple, Ben. You know it’s true. It’s time you found us more students to take your place. And when you come back, it’ll be by my side. To help me teach them.”

A long exhale left Ben’s lips as the air was punched out of him. He knew Luke was going to let him graduate from padawan, but he’d assumed that just meant he would be a Knight. Not..

“You’re going to make me a _Master_?” He whispered out, a little too hopeful. He should have known that meant it was too good to be true.

Luke let out one harsh laugh, and then patted Ben hard on the shoulder. “Not even close, kid. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re just taking on some new responsibilities. You know the training like the back of your hand, you could probably recite the sacred Jedi texts by heart, and you’re stronger with the Force than anyone I’ve ever known. There are children out there who need your help. They’re struggling with this, just like you were. They need someone like you to look up to.”

Luke turned to throw his robe over his shoulders, and slid his arms through the sleeves. “Besides. I won’t be around forever. It’s about time you learned how to find people who need your help on your own. Even if there’s peace in the galaxy, our job will never be done. There’s always going to be someone out there who doesn’t know what to do with that pull, that ache inside. Do you remember what happened to you, the first time you manifested the Force?”

Ben’s sharp, awkwardly wide shoulders slumped heavily, and he dropped down onto a nearby stone slab. “You only bring it up in every single anecdote ever.”

“Took down an entire floor of that hut on Kashyyyk, if I recall. Isn’t that right?”

Ben groaned into his hands.

“Chewie’s family spent weeks reconstructing their home. Did they ever say you were allowed back over?”

Ben stood up, gripping the compass tightly in his fist. Luke was still reminiscing about the utter destruction Ben’s awakening had caused when he stormed out of the hut. But a few seconds later Ben heard his uncle calling out to him from the doorway.

“Hey. Where’re you going?”

Ben barked his answer out over his shoulder. “TO FIND YOU SOME JEDI.” And quietly, under his breath, he muttered to himself. “And get the hell away from you.”

It didn’t matter that he had the utmost respect for his uncle as a Jedi Master and a powerful Force user. He was still his uncle, and Luke still had a unique knack for getting on his last nerve.

* * *

Ben’s first transport vehicle was a carefully constructed mash up of ships, all piled up on top of one another. He’d scavenged parts that he liked and left the rest to rot, anytime their travels had led them to a scrapyard or abandoned graveyard of ships. By the time he found them, they’d usually been picked clean; but Ben was extraordinarily picky, and only took components he felt were just right.

By the time he’d actually constructed a working ship that didn’t fall apart the moment its twin engines roared, he was old enough to fly the Falcon with Chewie on his own. As thrilling as that was, there was something vitally important about calling something his own. He wanted to be proud of what he’d built, with his own two hands; not some old shoddy hand me down.

(Not that his father looked likely to ever hand him down the Falcon. He seemed more attached to that ship than he did his own son, and Ben refused to ever consider the idea that it would be his one day.)

So he built his own. It was small, fast, and light. It outmaneuvered the Falcon, though it never could outrun it. His father told him once that he’d just built himself a souped up TIE, but his ship wasn’t nearly as small or flashy as the black Imperial fighters. He didn’t have the luxury of choosing the colors that adorned his ship, but he’d signed the side of it with the name he’d chosen in big black letters with ink and a brush. 

Chewie had said it would rub off the first time he broke the atmosphere. Ben didn’t care. This was his baby. His Scavenger.

The ship had enough room to hold a small cache, or temporarily house a dozen people, in its tiny cargo bay. He did not expect to need the space for this mission, but he was sure it would come in handy if he ever chose to move on from the way of the Jedi and find his own path somewhere else.

He was already at the pilot’s seat priming the engines on the ship when he heard a knock at the cargo bay door, and reached up to flip the switch that would lower the ramp. His first assumption had been Luke, hurrying to offer him some last minute wisdom before he left, but when the door opened he could feel a sense for who was walking up behind him, and his hands stilled against the controls.

In his rush to get away from Luke and conquer this last hurdle in his journey.. he’d forgotten to say goodbye.

“Just like that?” Alessandra asked, bending enough to be able to lean against the rickety wall of his cockpit. Her arms were folded and her knees were bent, trying so desperately to look cool despite how awkward the position really was. 

Ben’s shoulders sagged.

“I forgot.”

She smacked the back of his head, knocking him forward an inch. He whirled around in his seat and glared up at her while he ran his hands through his hair, clearly more unhappy that she’d mussed it up than actually hit him.

“You _forgot_? That’s an insult. Did we do something worth forgetting us for?”

Ben’s eyes lingered too long on her disappointed face, before turning back towards the controls.

“It’s not like that.” His cracking voice growled out. “Besides. You sound like you’re forming attachments. You know what the Jedi code has to say about that.”

“Bugger the Jedi code. We’re your friends, Ben. The least you could do is say goodbye.”

There were few people at the Jedi Temple that Ben felt compelled to say goodbye to. Alessandra might have called them all his friends, but he failed to see them as such. They were jealous, petty children who constantly teased him about his looks or his personal failures. Saying goodbye didn’t feel very important to him, just then.

Except.

“I won’t be gone forever.” His hands began to fuss with the controls, keeping themselves busy in an effort to look nonchalant. “You’ll hardly miss me.”

“You don’t get to tell me how much I’m going to miss you, Ben Solo.”

He cringed. There was real hurt in that voice, too telling and honest for him to ignore. Alessandra was only fourteen, but she was old enough to have her heart broken. And even though Ben wasn’t much older than that, it seemed like he was destined to follow his fathers footsteps and be just the kind of boy to break them.

“It was one kiss, Lessie.” Ben shuddered out in exasperation, crawling out of his cockpit to pass her and head into his cargo hold. He was checking his supplies over one last time, and keeping himself busy enough to hide the truth. “You’re overreacting.”

There was a long pause, and Ben thought he might have actually driven her off with his brusque attitude. When he turned around to check, he received a sharp slap across the face that knocked his entire body to the side with its strength.

“Get your head out of your arse.” Alessandra hissed out. “I don’t care about that. Do you think I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t kissed me? What kind of power do you think you have, Ben? You’re not even that good at it!”

His head swiveled back, clearly offended by the remark. _Good_ , she thought. He deserved it.

“I’m here because I care about you. We all do. I know you love to tell us how we feel all the time, but you’re _wrong_ more often than not and you’re definitely wrong here. So forgive me if I just wanted my _friend_ to say goodbye before he flew off for Force knows how long. Only I don’t think I have to worry about that, anymore. Some friend _you_ turned out to be.”

That was the end of it. Alessandra stormed off, her boot stomps vibrating the floor of his cargo bay with each step. He watched her leave, and a tiny voice in the back of his mind told him that any reasonable person would run after her and make this _right_. A good, kind, balanced person would mend the wound he’d just ripped between them, and leave that girl behind with some semblance of peace.

He stared at the open cargo bay door for several minutes, waiting for some great and powerful revelation to come flooding into him, to force him to go after her.

Eventually, he smacked his palm against the remote and the ramp whined as it began its ascent, shutting closed with a powerful slam.

When he climbed back into the cockpit, he could see her turning around to face the ship. She hadn’t gotten very far, he noticed; or else she hadn’t actually walked away at all, and had been waiting for him that entire time. Either way she wasn’t waiting now, as she pulled her robes up tighter around herself. The force of his engines whipped at her clothing and hair wildly, and she struggled to keep them both under control.

But she refused to walk away. That was what he’d always liked about Alessandra, above all of the other padawans. She had that same stubborn, fighting spirit that reminded him of his mother. He’d favored her, and that had just made jealousy between the padawans even worse.

He realized, now, that he was the one who’d made the mistake of letting himself get attached. But if there was one thing he could fix about this mess he’d created, it was that.

The ship hovered as it prepared to take off, and he glanced down at her one last time. Instead of the anger he expected to see in her face, he saw resignation. No, worse - there was _pity_ in her eyes. And he couldn’t tear himself away from it.

She rose one hand in farewell, and before he knew what he was doing, his own hand mirrored the pose. He caught himself a moment later, and his eyes flickered purposefully away from the sight of her as he settled both hands on the wheel.

If there was one thing this trip could do for him, he hoped it would be to give him a chance at finding some elusive peace in the distance and solitude. He focused on that hope with a grim determination, and pumped his engine power to send his little ship off into the stars.

* * *

Two days had passed without so much as a flicker from the compass. Ben had only brought enough rations to last him two months. He spent most of the day concentrated on the compass in deep meditation, reaching out in the hopes it would find that same thread he’d connected with the day Luke had given it to him. Somewhere in the general direction he’d been following was a Force user, but he couldn’t narrow their placement down without that same connection pinpointing the location. He’d taken the Guu Run hyperspace channel to its very limit, and by then there was nothing left to follow, and no trace of just how far in that direction the Force users planet was. Whoever that had been was no longer using the Force, or even worse - actively hiding it.

He refused to believe the third option; that whoever it had been was now dead.

By the end of the second day, Ben decided to power down the ship and give its engines a rest. His constant meditation had left him sweaty and unwashed for too long, and he meant to fix that problem as well. 

So, of course, that had to be the moment a distress signal came screeching across his dashboard, loud and obnoxious.

He stumbled out of the tiny refresher with a towel around his waist and ran, dripping, back to the cockpit. The meat of his palm hit the transmission button and the blaring alarm was replaced by the sounds of someone talking rapidly in clear distress.

“-last engine’s about to fail. Mayday, mayday, if anyone can hear this please respond, I’m dead in the water with an oxygen leak that’s dangerously close to-”

There was a garbled explosion, but whatever it was hadn’t been enough to cut off the transmission completely. Ben located the distress beacon and set a trajectory to intercept, but he could tell it would take at least ten minutes of hyperspace travel to get there. He reached out to respond and let them know he was coming, but before he connected something caught his attention from out of the corner of his eye. Something very bright, glowy, and demanding.

The compass had found a new target, lighting the way towards a nearby Force sensitive.

And it was pointing in the exact opposite direction of the owner of the distress call.

Ben reached down and grabbed the compass, letting out a howl of frustration through clenched teeth when he realized it. He followed the trace of lines with his eyes, attempting to commit the map to memory, but it was so small, so intricate and detailed.. he just knew that would not be enough to find his way without the compass’ help.

He sincerely considered abandoning the distress call completely in favor of going after his ultimate goal.

After a few long, biting seconds of indecision, he finally growled and dropped the compass onto his dashboard before slamming an angry hand down on the transmission controls. “This is the Scavenger, I’ve received your distress signal and I’m on my way. Time to intercept is ten minutes.”

There was a silence on the other side after he’d sent the message, and Ben wondered if the ship had just exploded while he was talking. He hovered his hand on the lightspeed lever, waiting for some indication that he was headed towards anything more than debris, and only received a response after he’d begun making calculations for a jump in the opposite direction.

“Scavenger, transmission received. I’m working on containing the oxygen leak so it doesn’t get anywhere near the engine fire, I think I can manage for another ten minutes.”

The voice on the other line paused, but he was still transmitting. A few moments later, in a quiet but relieved voice, the pilot on the other line breathed out a soft, _”Thank you.”_

Ben pulled the lever to send him hurling into hyperspace, and smiled.

* * *

The ship was called the Buzzard, which Ben found helplessly amusing given how well it would have matched his own ships name if it had survived. They were barely disengaged from it when the oxygen leak finally met fire, and the rumbling under his feet warned Ben to kick his ship forward quick enough to get away from the impending explosion. They were at a safe distance by the time the entire ship was in flames, breaking into pieces that left the contents of the ship to float in open space like a cracked egg. The fire itself didn’t last long, but there was nothing of the ship that could have been salvageable after an explosion like that. Nothing except its pilot.

The boy was younger than Ben, which came as a surprise to the Jedi when he docked and took the boy in. His name was Matias, and his deep voice had Ben assuming he’d be picking up a grown man. Instead, his new ship cargo held a scrawny, starving boy.

Scrawny, but tall. He had a similar build to Ben, except for the way his stomach inverted with the lack of nourishment. Before he’d even had a chance to speak, Ben threw a nutripack right at his face, and pointed at it with wide eyes as if to demand he _eat_.

The boy put up no argument.

Matias was a runner. He’d stolen his ship from a slaver on his planet once his parents had died, and he hadn’t found a safe home to settle in since. Ben never asked him for these details, but as soon as he’d had acquired the boy he’d discovered that Matias was quite talkative. Despite the sour, unwelcome look Ben always wore, Matias found he wanted to tell Ben everything. This was mostly because he hadn’t spoken to another living soul in almost a month, and anyone would do.

“Is your planet safe?” He said, finally taking a breath from all his sharing to ask Ben a question. “Maybe you know someone there who needs hired help? I can do most anything. Whatever I can’t do, I can learn to do. Seriously, if you know of _anything_ -”

“No.”

Ben was not about to take this chattering boy back to the Jedi Temple with him. There were no jobs, there. No place for a boy like him. “I’ll take you to my next stop. Hopefully you can find work there, or a transport to somewhere better. That’s all I can offer.”

Matias went quiet. He’d finally started to notice just how unhappy Ben was with his presence, and realized that it was a good rule of thumb not to piss off the man who held your life in their hands. At any point, Ben could decide that saving him wasn’t worth it, and space him. 

So he shut up.

Ben’s hand clutched the compass, which had gone completely dark. This, in truth, was the real source of Ben’s foul mood - but the boy beside him couldn’t have known that. Ben was following the vague memory of the map he’d tried to memorize in his head, and this required a great deal of furrow-browed concentration.

Matias had been making that concentration very, very _difficult._

Minutes of silence stretched on into hours. At some point, Matias crawled back into the cargo bay and asked Ben if he could have another nutripack. In a curt reply, Ben assured him he could have a few, and probably should. Matias knew better than to gorge on food after going so long without it, but he still finished off two nutripacks before stopping himself. His stomach cramped with pain, and he groaned as he laid down on the hard cold metal grates, curling in on himself in a desperate attempt to get some sleep.

More silence passed on as Ben struggled to try and remember where he was going. It was no good, though - there were details he knew he was missing, details that he needed the stone itself to guide him towards. When he attempted to meditate on the compass, all he got was that unsteady flicker he’d first seen back at the temple. It was hardly anything at all.. but something was still better than nothing.

It was a full six hours later before Ben finally felt a miracle.

The swell of power was so tangible it made his fingers itch. The compass lit up so bright it reflected off the glass of his viewport, and as he watched the plate twist in the direction it wanted him to go, he grinned from ear to ear.

“Whoa.”

The sound of Matias’ hushed voice didn’t manage to startle Ben, or even tamper his joy. The boy flopped down in the seat beside him, and stared at the compass as it glowed and twisted with life.

“That’s beautiful.” Matias whispered. “What does it do?”

Ben’s voice was so deep, and his answer was so simple and enigmatic, that it made Matias shiver to hear it. “It guides me.”

Curiosity begged Matias to prod him further. But in that moment, with Ben’s face lit in an almost ethereal light, a thick blanket of respect stifled that urge from Matias completely. It allowed him to accept the answer with nothing but a dazed, awestruck nod. Something about all of this was very special. Something about _Ben_ was very, _very_ special.

And that’s when he noticed it.

“Whoa.” He breathed out again. It was clear he used that word quite a lot. “You’re smiling.”

Ben’s grin faltered when it was pointed out, and his eyes finally peeled away from the compass to fall on the boy beside him suspiciously. As his concentration waned, so did the light of the crystal, and he snapped back to attention, grabbing the threads that threatened to escape due to his momentary lapse of focus.

“So what?” Ben grumbled out.

It was clear Matias had almost ruined whatever mystical moment Ben was having with his device, so he crawled out of the seat and went back to his spot in the cargo bay. “No, it’s nothing, nothing! You just have a great smile. I didn’t think you were the smiling type. That’s all.”

He curled back up on his spot against the grates, and let out a big long yawn. “Sorry.” He muttered, his eyes already fluttering closed. Within moments, he’d fallen back asleep.

It took everything in Ben not to turn around and stare with open confusion at the boy behind him. This boy, thin as a rail and full of too much energy, had just thrown a compliment and an insult at him in the same breath. What was he supposed to think about that? Should he be angry? Flattered? Annoyed?

He was all of those things, and more.

The compass flickered in warning, so he refocused his thoughts into it, and nothing else.

* * *

The planet was wet and spongy. Even the landing gear sunk in the softness of it, bouncing the entire ship lightly before finally stilling a foot below surface level. Matias was still asleep in the cargo bay, covered in a ratty blanket Ben had thrown over his body at some point once the chattering teeth had started to rattle his nerves. He called back to try and wake the boy as he cooled down the engines, and hit the release for the cargo bay door. It hissed open, blowing gusts of hot air right into the ship. Ben immediately pulled off his thick black padawan robe, and shut down the ship before disembarking. 

When he turned to wake Matias up, he found the blanket discarded on the floor, and no Matias in sight. He’d already run outside, desperate to explore.

“Don’t touch anything.” Ben called out, stomping out of the ship and shutting the cargo hold remotely. “You don’t know what might be poisonous to us here.”

Matias froze with his back facing Ben. He refused to turn around, even as Ben moved closer, looming just over his shoulder. 

In the boys hand was a bouquet of four flowers which he’d already picked.

He grinned up at Ben in embarrassment, and didn’t put up a fight when the older boy slapped them out of his hands.

“If you die, I get to say I told you so.” Ben grumbled out, eyes rolling as he trudged forward with no regard to whether Matias followed him or not.

The compass was no help to him, by this point. They were exactly where they needed to be, down to the specific land mass, and there was nothing further it could tell Ben. Now, it was just a matter of finding them himself. This, he thought, was the really tricky part.

“Do you know who you’re looking for? A name, or a description? Anything?” Matias asked, keeping in step with Ben’s long strides. There were few things he liked about the boy, but one thing was he seemed good at keeping up.

Ben shook his head. “Nothing. I just have to trust in the Force to guide me.”

“The Force?”

Ben stopped walking. He’d nearly forgotten that the boy was _not_ one of Luke’s padawans, but instead a complete stranger to whom the Force - and the Jedi - meant nothing. Myths, if anything at all. Luke’s temple was supposed to be a secret kept from the Galaxy until the students were more prepared. This boy, innocent as he was, couldn’t be told about it.

Which meant Ben had to act as if he was on this mission alone.

“It’s difficult to explain on such short notice. It’s - a power that some people have. I’m looking for others with that power, and this is where I’m going to find one.” There, that had to be enough for him. Ben felt satisfied when Matias fell silent, and he assumed that was the end of that.

“Do I have this power?” Matias asked, proving Ben wrong.

“I sincerely doubt it.”

Before Matias could try and argue his way into the Force, their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a ground-shaking roar. While Matias’ first instinct was to take a step back and prepare to run, Ben was already surging forward, pulling his lightsaber off its hook and heading for the sound. This left Matias with only seconds to make his choice before Ben disappeared entirely, but he waffled until he saw the brilliant light of Ben’s lightsaber streak through the air.

That was a decision maker.

He bolted to try and catch up, just in time to see things that his mind had trouble processing. The boy - the pilot - _Ben_ was in the air, far higher than he should have been able to jump. He’d leapt off of the lip of a cliff, dropping down to a lower edge where something large and vicious had two children pinned. Matias watched from the top of the cliff as the grumpy boy who’d covered him in a blanket went soaring, his body twirling like something elegant and beautiful, until he slammed down feet first onto the head of the creature. His landing did nothing but disturb it, but the brilliant blue beam of light coming from his hands buried itself into the thick neck of the giant monstrosity, and the creature howled in pain.

On the other side of the lower cliff, one of the children kept his hands lifted up in the air. He looked like he was holding something back, but there was nothing there in front of him. His little female counterpart, however, was screaming and spitting in anger at the creature. Ben hadn’t killed it, and it was trying desperately to buck him and his burning weapon off; so the little girl surged forward, yelling like a warrior as she prepared to attack something far too large for her little hands to injure.

Matias cupped his mouth with both hands, and yelled at the top of his voice. “ _STOP!_ ”

Despite how much rage that tiny body was shaking with, the sound of Matias’ voice had echoed across the canyon and stolen her attention. She stilled, just in time to hear the nasty squelch of a giant head being separated from its body. Ben pulled his saber through the neck, and it twirled expertly in his hands as sinew and bone gave way. The creature was silenced, and its toothy face came tumbling down with a heavy bounce. It fell inches from the little girl, large enough to have crushed her to death on impact. Then it rolled uselessly off the cliffside, its tongue lolling as it disappeared into the darkness below.

The body took longer to fall, but before it could crash on the ground Ben flipped off of it, landing on one knee with a hand pressed against the ground. His lightsaber was carefully pointed back, away from the children, as he landed in front of them. It hissed as he shut it off, and when he stood, the hot gusts of air blew at his back and whipped the ends of his tunic around his legs. His shoulders rolled back, strong and proud, and his chest filled with a well-earned pride.

From his vantage point above, Matias could see the looks on those childrens faces. They should have been traumatized by the horror they’d just witnessed, and yet as they stared at this larger than life warrior, their eyes were wide and round and awestruck.

To those innocent faces, Ben Solo was a hero.

He was a hero to Matias as well, who was perhaps just a little less starstruck by all he’d seen, but no less impressed. Or curious.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying, down on the cliff face. Ben was speaking to them, bent down on one knee with his hand out to beckon them closer. The girl came to him without question, putting her hand inside of his. Her small male counterpart looked hesitant, his hands still held upwards strangely.

Ben whisked the girl into his arm and stood, walking over to the boy. He held out an arm and waited - Matias thought it looked like he was asking permission to pick the boy up. When he stiffly nodded, Ben carefully did so, without ever disturbing what the boy was doing with his hands.

And then it happened again. Ben was there, and suddenly he was just _not_. Matias struggled to follow the flight of him, a slow curve of a jump that shouldn’t have been possible for someone like them. Ben landed with a thump three feet from where Matias was standing, on the high cliff face where he’d watched it all happen.

And just below, a cascade of rocks crumbled noisily, toppling into the cliff where the children had been standing. It destroyed the entire lip, leaving absolutely nothing behind.

Neither Ben nor the children seemed interested in this phenomenon. Matias was the only one who watched it happen, staring at it incredulously with a sense of dread in his heart. They could have all died, there. If that had happened just a moment earlier... 

But none of them seemed to care!

Matias came running after Ben and the two children in his arms, laden with questions that just spawned more questions. In the end, he learned that the children were twins, recently orphaned and incredibly lost. And, he learned that they were exactly who Ben had come here for.

There was no proof. No reasoning. Not even a chance to check if their stories were true. Ben just carried the children back into his ship, and took them. That was it.

Matias wanted to argue. He very much wanted to argue, because something about this seemed utterly _mystifying_. He knew, however, if he’d pushed Ben too far in his questions, he would have been left on that planet to fend for himself just the way Ben had said he would do. He’d never see Ben, or these children, ever again.

He crawled back into that ship before Ben could lock him out of it, settled down stubbornly in the cargo bay, and crossed his arms. He expected a fight, or at least some kind of argument. Instead, Ben stared down at the boy sitting on the floor of his ship for a very long, tense minute, and then shrugged.

He let Matias stay on his ship, despite all his better judgements, with no questions asked. Later in the days to come, when Ben tried to ask himself why he’d decided to let the boy stay on for planet after planet, he managed to come up with several excuses. Ben was lousy with children and Matias had the disposition necessary to take up that burden. He needed someone who could keep up with him, a second set of hands to help carry things, a lookout in case they needed to stay overnight. Soon enough, Matias had become indispensable to Ben, and even his company had worn Ben down until he found himself enjoying it. But before all of that, in that moment of staring down at the boy and wondering why he was still on his ship, the truth was that there was just no good reason why he hadn’t kicked him out.

It just felt like the right thing to do. It had been a long time since Ben could say he’d blindly followed that particular instinct, the one that always tried to keep him straight on the path of the Jedi.

Considering how well it had turned out for him, he tried to remind himself that he really needed to follow that instinct more often.

* * *

In the weeks to come, Matias and Ben worked together seamlessly to gather up a group of six in total. 

There were of course the twins, Rine and Rowan.

On their next stop, they’d broken up a slave ring to collect an explosive young man named Maxon who would have certainly killed his slavers in anger, had they not found him in time.

Their next retrieval had been the simplest, but no less disconcerting to watch. Jo was a quiet, beautiful girl whose family allowed her to leave without issue. There was no great battle, or even an argument. They simply didn’t care that Joanne was taking this strangers offer, and Jo seemed less than remorseful about leaving everything behind. 

On a craggy planet without any other sign of sentient life, a feral, nameless boy left his planet of nothing and climbed aboard Ben’s ship without understanding a single word anyone said. This was the most mystifying success of them all, for Matias. There was no reason this boy should have trusted Ben. No words were exchanged, no promises made. He reached out with a heavy knuckled hand, pressing it against Ben’s open palm, and just _knew._

Their final discovery was an older boy named Ta'em. He was all edges and sharp teeth proudly displayed in a smile, and he clearly visibly unstable. His jittery attitude left Matias with a bad taste in his mouth. Even Ben was visibly worried, if only for the younger members of their small group. He decided that Ta’em was as good of a reason as any to return to the Jedi Temple and hand the group over to Luke.

But as soon as he made the decision, he caught sight of Matias rocking Rine to sleep in his arms. Rine was as fidgety and hot-headed as she’d been the day she’d almost tried to take on a giant monster with her bare little hands, but in Matias’ grip she found sleep, and a peace she couldn’t really get a grasp on without him. Ben realized that he’d have to leave Matias somewhere before they returned to the Jedi Temple, but that meant tearing him away from everyone else.

It meant leaving him behind, after having quickly formed enough of a bond with the boy that the idea hurt _him_ deep down in his very soul.

So much for that whole, ‘distance himself from attachments’ plan he’d been so sure about.

He set up autopilot, and climbed out of his seat to go crawl his way beside Matias. The ship had become crowded by now, but each of the children he’d picked up had found and claimed what they considered their little ‘corner’. Ta’em, in a rare moment of calm clarity, had told Ben that his ship was the only place he’d ever considered calling home before. Though each had been an entirely different situation, Ben had managed to save all of them in some way or another. They were a band of misfits, lost and lonely and scarred in so many ways; and in that, he felt like he matched them all. They were nothing like the padawans already learning at Luke’s temple. These children carried their pain with them, and it only made them stronger.

He hadn’t expected to feel so much for the band of padawans Luke had sent him out to find, but it hadn’t taken long to consider them a trusted family to him. A feeling that they had all sorely lacked. Even he...

The thought was shoved away from him before he could follow it to its complicated conclusion.

He sat shoulder to shoulder with Matias, having quickly foregone the pretense of shyness or personal space by this point. The boy looked up at him with a sleepy smile, and then read the look in Ben’s sad eyes. It took him a minute, but eventually, he got there.

“It’s time, isn’t it.” Matias whispered, trying not to wake Rine up.

Ben didn’t answer. He turned his eyes to watch Rine, and purposefully kept them from the heartbreak in Matias’ face. The silence answered for him, and Matias let his head drop to rest down on Ben’s shoulder when the truth settled in.

“When?” He breathed out.

“Tonight.” Ben answered. There was a stop - a good planet, with a decent economy. Ben was sure Matias would be able to find work there. He’d done research to make sure of it.

“Don’t tell them.” Matias said. “Just land. We’ll go out together. I’ll slip away.”

Across from them, Ta’em lifted his head up, having clearly picked up what Matias just said. He tilted his head, staring with too-bright eyes at the both of them. In response, Matias simply shook his head, and put his finger to his lips. Ta’ems response was a wide, sharp-toothed grin of compliance. It still managed to be a little unnerving.

“I’m sorry.” Ben murmured. He hated this, and he wanted the boy to know it. “I wish things could be different.”

“Me, too.” Matias told him. But they weren’t different. Now that he knew what this mysterious Force was that everyone in Ben’s ship seemed to have, the boy understood that his place had never meant to be with them. No matter how much his heart ached to think of being separated from these people he’d only known for little more than a month, it was time to find a new path for himself.

The past month had felt like a lifetime for him. Witnessing Ben perform feats that he knew he would never see again had been some of the most thrilling moments of his life. Being able to help save these people from a life of suffering and loneliness would easily be the best acts he would ever accomplish. He just wished..

He wished he could have been able to see them grow up and flourish and turn into heroes, just like his friend Ben did.

Ben. He turned his head and rubbed it against that ridiculous big nose, before butting it gently. He’d grown way too attached to this lanky boy with his grouchy moods and complete lack of social grace. Matias hadn’t expected Ben to let him in so easily. Ben, in truth, hadn’t expected to ever let _anyone_ in - and he’d told Matias as much, often. It made him feel unique. Special.

Now he was going to have to say goodbye, and figure out a way to forget he’d ever met any of these people.

No, not forget. Never forget. He just had to keep moving forward, with nothing but his memory to keep them secure in his heart. They would never truly be gone, as long as he had that.

The ship shuddered as it came out of hyperspace, and Ben left the strange, huddled warmth they’d created to go land at Matias’ new home.

Matias couldn’t even find it in him to be curious enough to look.

* * *

When the cargo bay doors shut one final time, it was Jo who asked the question first, her calm voice rising over the sound of Rine screaming.

Ben had no answer for any of them. The ship began to rise and all of his passengers were up on their feet, demanding answers. Matias had been left behind. This felt like the greatest insult to their tender new dynamic, a family of people so used to being left behind that the idea of leaving one of their own was _abhorrent_. Ben rubbed at his temples as Rine screamed in his ear, and tried in vain to find the last shred of patience afforded to him. He turned around, preparing to explain exactly why Matias could not be allowed to join them at the temple. He was faced with a sea of hurt faces, and one very bright, distracting light.

His compass was _beaming_ from his knapsack nearby. He’d had no reason to believe it was worth looking at anymore, but the crystal within clearly had other ideas.

He hushed the group once as he neared it, and hushed them again even louder when they did not immediately respond. Then he reached in and picked out the compass, holding it up to his heart. He wondered briefly if it was just reacting to the group of them, and their emotional outburst had caused a rift in the Force strong enough to trigger the compass device.

But the compass wasn’t pointed at any of them. The compass was pointed backwards, towards his own heart.

He turned around, and it continued to point in that direction, at the planet they were slowly drifting away from.

There was someone he still needed, on that planet. A newly awakened Force sensitive.

No. Not just any Force sensitive.

Ben clamored clumsily over his cockpit and hit the brakes, sending everyone behind him scattering to the floor. When Rine started screaming in complaint, he turned the ship sharply to the right, and laughed at the sound of rolling bodies. His laugh sounded as unhinged as Ta’ems, and that, more than anything, shut the future padawans up.

They were back on the planet in moments. Ben ran past the scattered children in his cargo bay and leapt out of the ship before the ramp had even fully dropped, leaving them confused and bewildered. He couldn’t even feel the ground underneath him as he pushed, fast as he could, to catch up with the one he’d left behind.

When he found Matias, he was standing in front of a rickety shelter. At his feet were two men, prone and unconscious, with scattered weapons at their feet. He was just staring at them, stunned at what he’d done.

Because he _had_ just done that. Matias had no doubts that something inside of him had knocked both those men away out of sheer instinct, when they’d pointed their weapons and prepared to fire.

The scene did not deter Ben. He didn’t even stop himself as he crashed hard into Matias’ back and sent him collapsing on the dusty ground. The boy was instantly on the defensive, fighting the gangly arms crushing around him, until he realized who it was.

And then he froze.

“What. The _fuck?_ ” Matias croaked out, his heart bursting with a pain he couldn’t quite understand.

“I was wrong about you.” Ben said. He still hadn’t let go, or allowed Matias to get off the ground. “All this time. I was wrong. And I should have known.”

Matias struggled one last time, just enough to turn himself around and give Ben an incredulous glare. “Known what? That you needed to wrestle me in the sand before you left? Get off!”

Ben snorted with laughter as he climbed off of Matias, and held a hand out to help the boy up. When Matias looked up to see that hand, he realized he was seeing a sight that he’d failed to see, that day on the ridge. Maybe it was the twin suns, beaming down behind Ben in an aesthetically pleasing halo. Maybe it was just the fact that Matias had already been hurting so bad, only to see Ben come back for him in a way that he never could have expected or even hoped for.

Or maybe it was just the fact that Ben was here to save him, just as he’d been there to save every single one of their terrible little family. Not from an exploding ship, but from something much worse than just danger.

He took Ben’s hand, stifling his questions just to let him enjoy this moment in full. Ben’s cheek lifted as a smirk played on his lips, and he dragged Matias back to the ship. Back to his little scavenged and cobbled together family.

Back to where he’d always known he belonged.

* * *

Ben would have loved to say that it had all passed in a blur; the steps he’d taken between Luke’s attempt on his life and the moment he stood face to face with Alessandra. 

But he couldn’t say that.

He remembered every second with irrational clarity, like the clear opposite of a blur in time. He could recall all of it in hyper detail, a twisted punishment for his sin. He felt every scrape against his skin as he crawled out of the rubble of his sleeping hut with his lightsaber in one bloodied hand and the tattered remains of his black robe clutched feverishly in the other. He could have traced back every footprint he’d left behind on the ground with his bare feet. He knew what he was doing, from start to finish.

And that was what made it hurt the most.

He’d woken Matias first. He was the only one allowed to see Ben cry, but he couldn’t stop the others from hearing his broken wails. When they’d come to investigate, Ben promised himself that he’d gotten it all out against Matias’ chest. He’d clung with a childish grip and muffled his screams against his best friends sleep tunic, begging for answers. Why, he asked. _Why. Why._ Why did his uncle try to kill him? Why was this how it had to be?

But his tears had gone hot, and they’d dried up by the time Rine creaked Matias’ door open. When the padawans found Ben now, there was absolutely nothing left in him but hate. Vicious, righteous hate. 

The kind of hate that brought you to action.

Matias held the keys to one other secret. He alone knew that Ben had been visited by a being of such great wisdom, singling out the best of them to lead them away from the stifled torture of the Jedi lifestyle. There were times, more often than not, that Matias had wished the voice had come to _him_ instead. He would not have hesitated, the way Ben always did. He would have taken his family away from all of this and followed that voice wherever it might lead.

Ben... he’d fought against the wisdom for years. The rest of them had seen him slowly eaten away by the conflict, torn nearly in two over his loyalty to his own uncle and the path to something new. Something better. Power, life, _family_. This voice was there for Ben when none of his real family was, and still he fought against it.

Ben said it was the Dark Side. Maybe that should have meant something more dangerous to Matias and the rest of the padawans Ben had saved. It certainly meant something unforgivable to those who had been there before them. Haughty, and so sure of themselves - they spoke those two words as if they were poison, spitting them from disgusted lips.

 _Dark Side._ Matias had never been afraid of the dark. Neither had Rine, or Rowan, or Ta’em, or the rest of them. They were all being taught that fear was their greatest enemy - and yet these pretend Jedi feared a couple of words more than they did death itself.

Still, even when Ben struggled against the Dark Side, Ben’s padawans believed in him. They trusted him; far more than they’d ever learned to trust Luke. As Matias felt his heart grow cold for their former master, he realized they were the ones who’d made the right decision after all. This man, this Skywalker - this _murderer_ was no Master of theirs.

That title was reserved only for Ben, now.

He could feel Bens heart breaking more with every second that passed. When the first padawans - those loyal to Luke - called him a liar, the response was lightning quick.

Rine had already killed a padawan before Ben could manage to stop the fighting. Rine had torn into her throat, turning it into an instant fountain of blood.

She died before she’d even hit the ground.

Ben commanded everyone still with a voice so deep it rooted them all to the ground. No one moved as he trudged his way towards the girl, falling down to his knees and picking up her lifeless body. This wasn’t what he’d wanted, not for any of them. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen.

Matias took notice of one important detail. Even as Ben put the body down near the temple, he still didn’t cry. Bens tears had been spent, given away in private. To Matias.

It made him feel special.

“We’re leaving.” There was no question in Ben’s voice. This was an order. For everyone. 

“Luke Skywalker is not the man he claims to be. I refuse to stay here, and I _refuse_ to let anyone else stay here. If he’s dead, then the temple dies with him. If he’s alive, I won’t let any of you remain under the same roof as the man who tried to kill his own nephew in his sleep.”

Something had changed in him, by then. To Matias, and Rine, and even Ta’em, it was the change they’d all been waiting for.

To the others, it was pure and intolerable treason. They could sense the Dark Side in him now - all of them could, even Matias who struggled with his grasp of the Force the most. To those who considered themselves Luke’s true students, there was only one danger here.

Alessandra was one of only a few padawans who’d managed to forge her own lightsaber by this time. For the rest, the training sabers they used in spars were the only things they called from their beds. A faint trickle of rain started to splatter against Ben’s face, and the drops shone with color as lightsabers hummed to life right in front of him.

They’d taken up arms against their brothers and sisters in the Force. Ben knew it should have been hard to blame them, when Rine had already killed someone just for calling Ben a liar. He knew that they had every right to fight for what they believed in, what they’d been taught since childhood. He knew that he would have fought alongside them, in any other case but this.

He knew these things, and it did _nothing_ to quell the rage of betrayal that surged through his veins, bubbling up angrily within him until his breath was coming in harsh, swallowed gasps.

His hand flexed, gripping his lightsaber dangerously. 

Alessandra’s eyes caught the movement, but maintained her defensive position. “Don’t do this.” She whispered, her voice muffled by the rain. “Don’t go this way, Ben.”

He almost let her gentle voice lull him, but another voice was in his head now. Louder, louder still. It was a voice that showed him how Alessandra was trying to control him, just like Luke had done. Trying to stifle him, to smother him. She wanted him to _give up_.

Ben was done giving others any measure of his control.

When his lightsaber ignited, singed the raindrops at his side, the padawans he’d saved took it as a signal, and _charged._

* * *

Ben wishes he could say it all happened in a blur. He wishes he didn’t remember the exact moment every one of those students died. He wishes he couldn’t feel the stain on his friends souls, the very second each of them became a murderer.

He wishes he could say these things, but they would be lies.

* * *

Alessandra stood alone now, tears staining her pretty cheeks as they carved paths down her face. Everything she’d ever cared for was lying dead in wet puddles at her feet, and the source of this total loss was looming above her, forcing his lightsaber down against hers with sheer brute strength. She grimaced as she pushed back, trying to hold her ground, but the dirt beneath her feet had become soft and slippery from the rain and blood seeping through it. She was sliding backwards, and Ben kept his advance without mercy.

She could see it in his eyes now. The glow of their clashed lightsabers lit up the dark within him, bright enough for her to see what he had lost.

And for a second, just one second, she didn’t blame him anymore. She blamed Luke for this. For all of it.

It was this pity, flickering across her expression, that made Ben clench his jaw and scream.

 _”Let GO of all of this.”_ He yelled into her face, forceful and unhinged. “There’s nothing left for you here. You _know_ that. You have no choice left!”

Her spine screamed with pain as he forced her to arch back. Her form stuttered, and he took advantage of it. With a whirl of his saber, he had her disarmed. She stumbled back a few steps, losing her balance.

Before she could fall backwards into the mud, his long arm snapped around her waist. Ben righted her back up to her feet until she found her footing again, and then slowly, hesitantly let her go.

His lightsaber remained ignited, waiting patiently at his side.

“Lessie.”

Alessandra sucked in a sharp breath. It was as if the boy she’d remembered, the boy who’d taught her how to fight and given her her first kiss in a silly little game, had returned just to beg her to reconsider. He was Ben again, and the Dark had fled from him, just long enough for him to reach out his hand.

“Join us.”

It was the us that had Alessandra’s hand remaining still at her side. Ben might have made her consider the offer, on his own. But even if she couldn’t feel the Dark Side encroaching on him in that moment, she could feel it swirling possessively around the others who stood behind him, drunk on power and blood. She did not believe there was a place for her, in the cruel little family Ben had forged for himself.

Ben was lost to more than just the Dark Side. And she would rather die than follow him into it.

The rain refused to leave them in silence, but Alessandra’s lack of a response was enough of an answer to break Ben’s heart. His hand gripped hard on the hilt of his lightsaber, as he struggled to find the power to do what he knew must be done.

This was his final test, the voice told him. Kill her, to protect his family. Only then, would he become a true master.

Alessandra never took her eyes off of his. She knew that Ben was going to kill her, and in doing so he would truly be lost to the Dark Side. So she watched his eyes, refusing to turn away from him. She would watch Ben die, just as he would watch her die afterward.

Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped open. Pain surged through her body, singing with burning agony. She could feel the jagged pain of something shoved through her entire body, puncturing all the way through her heart.

Bens brow furrowed at the sight of her pain, until the blossom of blood began to soak through the beige of her sleep tunic. When she fell, she fell forward, straight into his waiting arms. His lightsaber dropped to the ground, shutting off with a hiss as it sunk partially into the mud.

Just behind where Alessandra had been standing, Matias was holding the deadly point of a broken wooden stake. Alessandra bubbled up blood in place of her final words, but her death was quick, and efficient. She went limp before Ben could even process what had just happened.

Matias threw the stake off to the side, and let his gaze fall to the girl he’d just killed in cold blood, with his own two hands. He waited for some kind of guilt, or shame, or suffering.

It didn’t come.

“Matias.”

He looked up to Ben, and a strange calm came over him.

_“Why?”_

It was such a simple question. Matias reached up with a blood soaked hand, cupping Ben’s face with it until the side of his hair became matted with Alessandra’s blood. And he smiled.

He just smiled.

“You’ve saved us enough, for one lifetime.” He whispered, brushing his thumb across the side of Ben’s face. “It’s about time you let us save you for once.”

Everything was going to change for the better, now. Matias could feel it. The others all knew it. And he was sure, once they were finally home, wherever they were truly meant to be, Ben would feel it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Editing to add that I wrote a short snippet of Rines view of Matias, in present time. Read it [here!](http://every-day-is-star-wars-day.tumblr.com/post/169647382608/matias-from-rines-pov)
> 
> I've also fully facecasted this fic. Check that out [here!](http://every-day-is-star-wars-day.tumblr.com/post/169637464018/youre-a-man-now-boy-alania-star-wars-episode)
> 
> If you head over to my Tumblr you'll find further information and a few blurbs about the characters, under my tag "kor hc".
> 
> Fic title inspired by Raleigh Ritchie's [You're a Man Now, Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSyDeY7a1Dc) \- a perfect song for Ben Solo.
> 
> This fic meant a lot to me to write. I'm really attached to a lot of my, and my friends, headcanons about the Knights of Ren. They deserve a whole book or comic series or even a movie to themselves. A SERIES MAYBE! 
> 
> Anyway, so me and my friend were talking about how the compass shows up on Ben's table with his calligraphy set in the movie, and we started headcanoning that the compass is a map to other force sensitives. That would explain why Palpatine had it first, and why Luke wanted it so desperately / was able to find 12 students for his new Jedi temple. It just made perfect sense. So the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write out who the Knights of Ren were and why they chose to follow Ben while the other half of Luke's padawans didn't. 
> 
> Also I'm in love with Matias and he's more canon to me than actual canon so that's ??? a thing.
> 
> Oh! right! and before I forget:
> 
>   _He’d taken the Guu Run hyperspace channel to its very limit, and by then there was nothing left to follow, and no trace of just how far in that direction the Force users planet was. Whoever that had been was no longer using the Force, or even worse - actively hiding it._
> 
>  
> 
> _He refused to believe the third option; that whoever it had been was now dead._
> 
>  
> 
> At least now you know she's not dead!
> 
> Thank you to [Aicosu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/pseuds/Aicosu) for beta-ing and for helping inspire this whole fic!


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